In "The Birth-Mark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author floods the story with many forms of symbolism to show there is no true form of perfection on earth. Although trying to accomplish such a thing, Aylmer not only highlights his failures as a scientist, but also kills his beautiful wife. After many nights of gazing upon his wife's porcelain face, slaying her heart with his disgusted looks, Aylmer convinces his wife Georgiana to let him conduct an experiment on the hand-shaped, rosy birthmark she flaunted upon her cheek, to remove such flaw and achieve pure perfection on earth. Within Aylmer's laboratory exists two contrasting rooms that display not only the workplace for the grungy men, but the heavenly boudoir of which his wife so pleasently…
The Shape of Things and The Birthmark have a lot of similarities and differences. Both pieces of literatures characters focused on a couple. A main character each piece of literature have the common objective of changing human imperfections to become more desirable and in the end, achieve similar results. However the Motives and other aspects differ in both pieces.…
Aylmer is the scientist whose seek for the way to perfection his wife, Georgiana. Georgiana have a small red birthmark on her left cheek and she do not want to remove it. Aylmer interpreted the birthmark as a sign of mortality and sins. He thinks that he came overcome it by removing the birthmark. Aylmer talked to Georgiana about removing her birthmark and she said that she will risk her life to have the mark erase. As a result of his attempt trying to remove the birthmark, he ends up killed Georgiana. Aylmer realized that it’s not always necessary to seek for perfection and better things. Since he had removed his wife’s birthmark and she is now perfect, Georgiana had to heaven because human world is not a place for an angel to…
It is impossible to deny that human imperfection exists. Today’s society has a tendency to be obsessed with the idea of physical perfection. Nowadays if our appearance isn't how we'd like it to be, there's plastic surgery. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “The Birthmark” in 1843 about more than a century ago. In this short narrative the author is trying to show us it is wrong to attempt changing nature with science. The message is that being imperfect is being human. Georgiana and Alymer demonstrated their obsession with physical perfection much like we would today. In the story the wife, Georgiana, was perfect in every way except one; she had a mark on her left cheek. Georgiana was born with a crimson birthmark in the shape of a hand. The birthmark…
Foreshadowing hints at what will happen in the story and it affects the overall message of the story "The Birthmark." The husband wants the birthmark gone and has a dream that foreshadows that he is willing to kill her in the process of removing it. The reader continues to read to see if he actually kills her. The wife foreshadows her death in this quote “... it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself.”…
As shown in "The Author to Her Book" by Anne Bradstreet, perfectionism is not a new phenomenon. Bradstreet uses diction, imagery, and tone to display her insecurities about, and dislike of, her own work, resulting from the human imperfections that have created an inadequate piece of literature.…
Have you ever wondered if internal conflict improves the literary work? Minor and major characters face internal conflict in almost every literary work. Internal conflict is the key to creating more complex characters that people can relate to more. Internal conflict adds emotional depth, and provides reasoning behind motives.…
There are several feats that one can accomplish in life that set him or her apart from other individuals. When thinking of specific “feats” that a person can achieve, several sports records come to mind. Someone can have the most touchdowns in football, score the most points in basketball, or score the most goals in soccer or hockey. However, records like these pale in comparison to pitching a perfect game. There’s something about retiring 27 batters in a row that astounds us to the point that unknown pitchers who throw perfect games essentially become baseball icons. But the human preoccupation with perfection exists outside of baseball. In The Birthmark, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the theme of human imperfection is present in the ideas of mortality, science versus nature, and…
Hawthorne also indicates that it is equivalent to representing her flaws. It is man's nature to be mortal and imperfect, which is just what it means to be a human. Aylmer “simply fails to see the object of his affection as an ordinary human being” (Bloom). Aylmer’s desire to make his wife perfect is doomed to failure because perfection is the exclusive province of heaven and can not be found on earth. In fact, the very success of Aylmer’s perfection-inducing potion may doom Georgiana to death. Because she becomes an ideal being, completely perfect and unflawed, she is no longer able to exist in this world.…
In Hawthorne's short story, "The Birthmark," he examines that nature is supposed to be imperfect and cannot be changed. Hawthorne's main character, Aylmer is a static and stock character who does not change and is a mad scientist. He is determined to remove his wive's birthmark and is in denial that nature is imperfect and not everything can be changed. Hawthorne examines the theme that nature is supposed to be imperfect he shows it through Aylmers thoughts about how nature works. Aylmer is a part of nature himself and tries to achieve perfection by making his wife perfect and removing the birthmark. Lastly, Hawthorne uses symbolism to once again portray that nature cannot be changed and it is meant to be imperfect. The dream Aylmer has a deception…
Society has etched an image into everyone’s heads. It’s painted perfection all around them and it’s told them many times what it truly means to be beautiful. Though people say they have their different views on perfection, it mostly consists of the same characteristics. To define this beauty that everyone craves, one has to be charming, attractive, thin, honest, understanding, and many other things. It seems almost impossible to satisfy anyone’s views on what it means to reach these aesthetics. From reading “Fences” by August Wilson and “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, it is undoubtedly seen how flawed their main characters are. In every aspect of perfection, Willy and Troy contradict it with their own despicable personalities and thoughts. Though, through all of…
However, the major factor that renders perfection impossible to be achieved is the natural human limitation all the people should accept without choosing. Keller prods Paul more than once, drawing a negative image and telling him that he will never…
The relentless pursuit of human perfection has always been an intrinsic trait of human nature and science has been a mean to achieve it. This statement brings us to the main idea of Hawthorne 's short story "The Birth-mark." It shows the story of a scientist who is obsessed with the removal of his wife 's birthmark, considering it a symbol of her human imperfection. "The Birth-mark" is possibly influenced by Hawthorne 's times where science began to gain knowledge about our world and was considerably glorified, through scientific experiment, humankind can discover, know, and do just about anything. As the narrator explains, “In those days when…
This world cannot withstand the concept of perfection. Perfection is something reserved for the boundaries of Heaven and cannot be synthetically created by any human being. Nature is raw, flawed and does not take well to being improved upon. This is why Nature ultimately has the final say in what can and cannot existence. In “The Birthmark”, Hawthorne suggests that nothing and no one is perfect nor has the ability to obtain said perfection. An obsession to surpass Earthly Nature can and will result in the destruction of what was once loved.…
Society manifests its obsession with physical perfection by having surgical procedures done on daily basis. These surgeries allow for almost any cosmetic transformation. For example a person can have anything from removing a birthmark to inserting breast implants to having a tummy tuck done on their body. Society manifests their obsession with physical perfection by having these procedures done to them. These procedures enable society to achieve "perfection", much like Georgiana in the "Birthmark".…